Eight months

Our girl is eight months old already! I've been so amazed at Marla's growth and development lately. She's becoming so aware and responsive. I'll be honest, some of this makes our lives a teensy bit more difficult. For example, she often cries when we leave the room now. She also cries when I put her in her crib, take away a toy, or give her food she doesn't want. She refuses her pacifier most of the time, which has made naps more difficult. She stiffens her legs up to prevent me from setting her down on the ground. She reaches out to grab Betsy's fur. She hates having her diaper changed. She wakes up in the middle of the night. A lot.

And to top it all off, we've been seeing a lot of this face lately:

The noise that usually accompanies this face is a mixture of snorting (like a pig), snuffling (like a rhino), and growling (like a dragon). Adorable, right?

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of great things going on with Marla, too. See for yourself...

Food has become a lot more fun. She was never a big fan of baby food, so we've moved from purees on to table food. It's awesome to be able to feed her from our plates for the most part. Plus, she's getting better and better at picking up chunks and feeding herself. Cheerios are a favorite.

This weekend, we gave her an apple from Grandma Susie's tree. She didn't make a peep for half an hour while she gnawed away at it!

She gets bored of the jumperoo pretty quickly now, but still LOVES to bounce, bounce, bounce all the time.

She can get onto all fours and rock a little bit, but doesn't crawl yet. She's gotten pretty adept at rolling, squirming, and stretching towards things she wants to get her hands on.

She also does a lot of leaning and lunging from a sitting position. Observe as she attempts to eat my foot. Mmmm.

Check out her pearly whites!

Her favorite word is "da." She says it all day long, in a variety of volumes and intonations, to express a multitude of emotions. Needless to say, all of this "da da da da da" is going to Jeff's head. However, yesterday I caught her saying "ma ma ma," and was further surprised to see she'd learned a new skill. Who would've thought spit bubbles could make me so proud?

So far, eight months has been pretty exciting despite some new challenges. I think we'll keep her after all. :)